


Route 220

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Casper airport, please,” said the man with the slightly wild eyes, leaning into Donnie’s cab outside the gas station in Muddy Gap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Route 220

“Casper airport, please,” said the man with the slightly wild eyes, leaning into Donnie’s cab outside the gas station in Muddy Gap. Behind him, a tall kid kicked up dust with the toe of his scuffed sneaker. A woman stood next to the boy, an unreadable look on her face. Was it pain, joy, or disbelief? 

“You’re going a long way,” said Donnie. “Where are you folks traveling from?”

The family, and they had to be family, their faces fit together like a perfect game of memory, shared a look.

“Rawlins,” the boy mumbled.

“Visiting family,” added the woman. “Our rental broke down here in Muddy Gap and we really need to make our flight.”

The three of them shouldered their duffel bags, stuffed them efficiently into the trunk, as if they did this all the time, and got into the cab. The woman adjusted the front passenger seat to make room for the long-legged twosome who folded themselves in the back.

They weren’t a talkative bunch. Nobody seemed interested in playing car games or in conversation. Not local, then, not local at all by the looks of it.

“Do you mind?” Donnie asked the woman next to him, who had lulled herself into a half-trance and was leaning against the headrest, her body half-turned to look back at the boy in the left passenger seat. He gestured at the CD player.

“Oh please, go ahead,” she said and gave him an attempt at a smile.

In the rearview mirror, Donnie observed the boy and his father, who sat side by side, looking shell shocked and unsure. In an instant, when he heard Donnie’s audiobook start halfway through The Two Towers, the boy’s eyes lit up. He grinned, a goofy teenage grin of the kind Donnie remembered having hidden from view himself for years.

Next to him, his father perked up with concern, glanced over at the kid and then he too lit up like a lightbulb. Smiling, the man shook his head and closed his eyes.

“You like The Lord of The Rings,” the man said to the boy, “don’t you?”

The kid nodded. His father’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He nodded to himself and patted the kid’s knee. Absent dad, Donnie thought. Reunion.

He leaned forward, then, and put both hands on his wife’s shoulders. She turned to look him in the eye. A moment passed between them, and Donnie worked hard not to glance at them too obviously, but he could feel it. A sound, somewhere between a quiet sob and a laugh, escaped the man’s lips.

The next hour passed in silence. The boy sat upright, looking out the window at the plains of Wyoming, listening intently to the story. His parents were silent. The woman reached behind her to take her husband’s hand. He leaned his forehead against the back of her seat and stayed that way for a long time.

Gandalf and Pippin set off for Gondor.

Donnie observed the family in the rear-view mirror and out of the corner of his eye. What a fare, he thought.

The empty plain gave way to Wyoming’s version of the big city. More gas stations, the river, downtown. Suddenly, the woman turned almost fully in her seat, her body humming with urgency.

“Mauldur,” she said, “Mauldur, wake up.”

“What’s wrong?” the man asked urgently. The boy next to him shifted his legs and looked between his mother and his father, but the two of them were in their own little world.

She touched her hand to the back of his neck. “Security,” she said and he looked like he understood completely. “Can you check? The metal detector…”

“Yeah,” he breathed and turned swiftly to his son. “I need to check something.”

“O-okay,” the kid stuttered.

The man reached out and stroked his son’s hair briefly. “Don’t worry,” he reassured, “it’s nothing bad. Can you lean forward a bit?“

The boy folded himself forward, toward his dad’s lap. The man repeated his wife’s action from a moment ago, sliding his palm down to cup his son’s neck. He seemed to be pressing his fingers into the boy’s hairline. The woman watched them with an anxious expression on her face. She kept licking her lips.

"All clear,” the man muttered after a few seconds.

The woman exhaled loudly. “Thank God.”

The boy rearranged himself into his seat and quietly resumed staring out the window.

“We’ll tell you later, Will, okay?” Once again the man patted the boy’s knee.

The three of them were awkward together, more like strangers than like family, and seemed unsure of where to look, who they could touch and who was off limits. The two adults clung to each other as much as they could in the car. They glanced at their son, at each other, both with something desperate, unreadable, in their tired faces.

Donnie wondered what kind of epic tale was behind this odd family and their expensive cab ride to Casper. They looked underslept and anxious. They looked like yuppies from Salt Lake, but didn’t sound like it. The boy looked like the missing puzzle piece between his parents - tall, skinny, ginger, with large features and haunted blue eyes - but who were they to him? 

They paid cash at Departures, and the woman added a hefty tip. “Thank you, sir,” she said, “you have a good day.”

Donnie scribbled a receipt for her, and when he looked up, she was ready to close the door. “Where are you off to?” he asked, feeling safe to be nosy now that the fare was done.

“East Coast,” the woman said and smiled a tiny smile. “We’re going home.”

The three of them disappeared around the corner, boy, dad, and mom, in order of height. The last thing Donnie saw of them were the mother’s blue eyes, large as saucers, staring at father and son who walked ahead of her, in perfect step with each other.


End file.
